


Everything Stays

by GamblingDementor



Category: In the Heights - Miranda
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Family, Gen, Growing Up, Loss of Parent(s), Parent-Child Relationship, Trans Sonny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 21:11:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9257399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GamblingDementor/pseuds/GamblingDementor
Summary: Everything stays right where you left itEverything stays but it still changesSlices of life over the years of Usnavi's life. Character study on Abuela Claudia.





	

Out on her stoop, María is trying to catch the sun. She's been having a chill for the past few weeks and nothing seems to get her much warmer anymore. A blanket on her knees, she watches the people come and go, all these folks of Nueva York, Irish and Dominican and Greek and Puerto Rican and from everywhere in the world it seems sometimes. She knows them all. Her daughter Claudia is right across the street in the bodega, playing with Luz's boy sitting on the counter. The customers come in and watch Usnavi wave and dangle his feet and they leave just a little bit happier.

 

The child isn't much of a talker yet, three years old, he is just starting, and María has heard that his parents are trying to make him call her daughter, only daughter and apple of her eye, Abuela Claudia. Her Claudia always was old for her age, not even half a century old now, but she already looks like an Abuela with her too big dresses and her narrow smile that she gives all too often. She already bakes for Usnavi and tells him stories and dotes on him like only an Abuela would. María is far older and doesn't do half as much. She wishes she had.

 

"Are you alright, _mamá_?" Luz asks from behind and rests a hand on her shoulder, warm but not warm enough to make the chill go away.

 

How ironic is it to play the mother with these people and to have her daughter be the Abuela? María never cared much for humor.

 

"I am," she replies, taking Luz's hand in hers and inviting her down on the stoop. "Thank you."

 

"You've been here all day."

 

"I like the heat."

 

As the years go on and on, she finds herself more and more thinking back of La Víbora and watching Claudia play with sunlight and try to catch birds. She sees her daughter now, much much later, and can still see the twinkle in her eyes from the little girl she used to be, back when her belly was aching with hunger and María's knees were sore from praying God for mercy. Claudia says she misses Havana and would like to go back, God willing, but María knows better. She's built a life here with her child, better than anything they could have had in Cuba. She's worked too hard for Claudia to spit on it and go back from the start. Claudia is too good a daughter. She wouldn't do that to her. She'll stay here and live a happy life till the end of her days.

 

"She loves the boy," Luz comments, also looking at her son and Claudia in the bodega.

 

"Everybody loves Usnavi," María says and thinks herself part of that. She would love to see that boy grow up healthy and smart and hardworking, the good son Luz and Luis deserve for all their struggles. She knows she won't be here for it.

 

"Everybody does, but Abuela loves him best of all."

 

María huffs at the nickname, but what Luz says might well be true. In the bodega, Claudia picks up Usnavi, kisses his cheeks, makes sure his shirt fits. She knitted the shirt. He hugs her and holds her hands and they whisper to each other and María can only remember a time when Claudia and her shared a bed and talked themselves tired, talked about their hopes and dreams about this great new city they'd just arrived in. Her only hopes and dreams now are her daughter's happiness. There isn't much to wish for herself anymore.

 

Much later, Claudia comes home, her smile warmer than any sunlight María has taken today. She walks María back inside, their arms interlocked, sits her down on their old couch, makes sure she's comfortable.

 

"Do you want the fan on?"

 

They speak English, they always have ever since they arrived in New York and learned it. María wanted the best for her child, and the best was not for Spanish speakers with thick accents and broken speech.

 

"No, I have a chill already."

 

So Claudia acts as the good daughter she always was, brings her an extra blanket, brings her coffee, brings her the TV remote in case she wants to watch something. She doesn't. She gestures to Claudia to come sit next to her.

 

"Claudia, are you happy?"

 

María knows she never asked that enough, knows she could have been better on every front, a better mother, an even harder worker maybe, but she knows that she has to ask it one last time. The chill won't go away, she knows. She has started to have trouble breathing last week and hasn't talked much ever since, but she won't bother Claudia with that, not when there's so little time left.

 

"I'm very happy," Claudia says in all her honesty. "Why are you asking?"

 

In truth, her smile says it all and Maria shouldn't even have asked.

 

"I wanted to make sure before."

 

"Before what?"

 

"Shh," she shushes her and holds up her arms to embrace her child. Claudia always did love a hug and María hopes she gave her enough in her lifetime, hopes she had her fill. "I love you, my child."

 

"I love you too, _mamá_ ," Claudia replies but María knows she doesn't understand.

 

María kisses her brow and tries to convey all her love, the love of a mother who would have done anything for her child, who did, and goes to bed for the last time.

 

*

 

She's been waiting for them for to come back the whole day and it's starting to get dark by the time the door of the bodega finally pushes open and they're here. In his mother's arms, Usnavi is fast asleep. Claudia rushes to hold him as Luís gets the three suitcases inside.

 

"The candy apples of the barrio! How was the Dominican Republic?" She whispers, Usnavi nestling closer to her in sleep. He is getting a bit too big to hold in her arms but she's not quite old enough that she can't manage after all.

 

Luz's smile is more genuine than Claudia has ever seen it as she gives her a side hug to not wake her son up.

 

"It was beautiful," she says, her eyes and soul still in the dream of her island. "Usnavi loved it."

 

"He didn't want to leave," Luís jokes. "He cried the whole flight back."

 

_Claudia always loved to travel, only when it meant going to the next block over, visit family in another city. Not embarking to another country aboard a giant, ugly gray steaming boat. She wanted to go back home, to go play with her friends and to get as far away from this monster as she can, but Mamá tugged on her hand. She was trying to smile for Claudia but Claudia knew she felt just as sad._

_"¡Vamos a Nueva York!"_

_And so they climbed onto that big ship that was swimming away from home, away from Havana, and Claudia had barely boarded when the tears started. They didn't stop until well after they disembarked in the new strange land._

 

They invite Claudia over at their small apartment to catch up with what everyone on the block has been doing during their month of vacation back in Dominican Republic. Usnavi is still in her arms, his thumb in his mouth, dreaming of another home. She combs fingers through his hair. He'll need it cut soon. Five and already such a big boy, but he'll still cuddle and sleep like a baby.

 

"I can't believe it'd been six whole years without going home," Luz confides.

 

"With the bodega…" Luís sighs. "We hope it wasn't too much trouble, Abuela."

 

"Not at all," she says.

 

Keeping the bodega was only natural for her to help her three sweetlings finally put these savings to good use. She has a job of her own already and idled on it for the time of their vacation. Sure, it's possible she lost clients and won't be hired to clean their homes anymore but she couldn't not step in when Luís needed someone to do his job when he was far away with his family. She's always put others first and that's how she'll keep doing it.

 

"So, what did you do?"

 

"Family, beaches, nothing special," he answers but Claudia knows it was incredibly special. "We took Usnavi to Playa Rincón, he wanted to never leave."

 

_Nueva York was big and ugly and gray and_ big _. She hated it instantly and begged Mamá to go home, but Mamá just smiled a sad smile and told her this was home now. It took four cabs to finally find a driver spoke Spanish, who would take them to Washington Heights because Mamá had heard they were other Cubans there. She told Claudia they'd sleep together now because they didn't have enough to pay for two beds, or even one bed, and besides it would be so much fun, wouldn't it? Claudia cried again during the night. She didn't want Mamá to hear but she must have been too loud because before she knew it Mamá's hand was rubbing circles on her back and Claudia heard that she was crying too._

On cue with his name, Usnavi starts grumbling in his sleep, clutching Claudia's sleeves.

 

"We should get him to bed," Luz decides. "He's tired from the flight."

 

Usnavi safely tucked in bed, they're a little more honest.

 

"Sometimes I even wonder why we came, you know…"

 

_She kept asking Mamá when they were going home, when they were leaving this ugly city and when she could play with the birds again, but Máma always replied that this was home now and she could play with the pigeons and the sparrows. She never found the time, though, not when they had to work so much._

 

"I know," she replies. She so terribly knows.

 

But life goes on, it has to, and Luz and Luís know it just as well as her. They're here now and there's a reason for that, and that reason is money and work. That reason is survival.

 

"Hopefully we can go again soon," Luz says. "It's good for Usnavi."

 

"Hopefully you do," Claudia smiles. "He needs his island too."

 

She leaves them for the night because they’re too polite to say they’re tired and would like to go to bed, but she hears about Dominican Republic every day from Usnavi after that.

 

*

 

 

Usnavi is the best of boys most of the time, doing what he's told and working hard and growing every day into kindness and patience and faith. Every afternoon he comes and does his homework. Claudia can't help him much but she pretends for his sake.

 

" _Bueno_ , let's review."

 

He recites his alphabet like a champion, smart as a whip. He's known it for months, of course, he's in first grade now, old enough to be reading, but he likes to show off. Then he recites the actual lesson he's been learning. She thinks. She trusts him with it − Usnavi is not nearly disobedient enough to trick her and talk about something else entirely than what he was just learning. He likes school, even though he probably likes recess even better.

 

_Claudia marveled at every new home they cleaned, exploring every hook and cranny, at least until Mamá called her and demanded she got back to work. The houses of the Upper East Side were so different than the large and narrow buildings of Washington Heights. They were huge and mostly empty and far too dirty. Weren't rich people supposed to be clean and proper and tidy? To pass the time, to pretend that it was normal to bring her school-aged daughter to work because education was not an option within their means, Mamá asked her questions._

_"How many spoons is that?"_

_And Claudia put down all the silver spoons they'd just polished and learned how to count._

 

His very favorite part of staying at Abuela, he says, is when she tells him stories about Cuba. He calls them stories about home, and she doesn't have it in her heart to correct him. So she tells him about drawing in the soft wet sand of the beaches of Havana, she tells him about the birds that had so many colors and that were so much more beautiful than any pigeon in Nueva York, she tells him about the palm trees and the scents and the food that never tastes quite the same when she makes it here. She tells him about that time she got lost on the beach in summer and she had to find her way home on her own at three years old and that time her friend tried to get her to smoke what was definitely not tobacco and that time they didn't have anything to eat so she ate the wrong kind of berries and it always makes him gasp even though he's heard it hundreds of times.

 

_Claudia asked for stories about Cuba every night but rarely would Mamá indulge her. She preferred to think of the present, or sometimes even the future, but that scared Claudia more than it thrilled her. So Mamá told her about the new car service opening up downstairs by that Irish man whose name she could never get right, she told her about the Greek family that just moved in and had such funny names, she told her about the fire hydrants and the yellow cabs that made the streets look like half-eaten corn cobs from the top floor, she dreamed about maybe one day go have a picnic in Central Park if they could ever have one day off. Claudia started to know more about Nueva York than about her island._

 

Sometimes, though not every day in case he gets spoiled, she bakes cookies with him. He's such a careful learner. He reads the recipe for her and weighs the ingredients, but listens to all of her advice as if it was the word of God itself.

 

"Remember, four cookies in one sitting, _no más_ ," she tells him and he listens and never eats more than four.

 

_Claudia was the best daughter she could be, trying to work as hard as her little body would let her, growing every day and priding herself in working even more._

Usnavi grows up having just slightly more options than she had and for that she thanks the Lord.

*

 

"And then, what do you do?"

 

"I stir, Abuela, we've done this a million times before!"

 

Some days Claudia likes to test Usnavi, make him cook their beans and rice all on his own, just to see if he can. By now he cooks almost as well as she does, not the fastest learner but the most assiduous.

 

"Good boy," she says and musses his hair.

 

_Mamá joked that Claudia knew how to cook before she knew how to talk. Back in Cuba, it was different, it was natural. You ate when you could and as much as you could because there was no way to know the next time you'd be so fortunate again. Knowing to cook food wasn't optional, it was survival, was utter necessity, was not even a question, especially for a mother and her daughter._

Usnavi's parents join them for dinner after a long day's work at the bodega.

 

"Usnavi cooked all by himself!" Claudia says fondly and Usnavi fidgets with unease and pride.

 

" _¿De verdad?_ He's good to marry off already!" Luís jokes but Usnavi isn't all that good with jokes.

 

"I'm just eight, Papí," he retorts with as much serious as such a little boy with chubby cheeks and shaven hair can ever have. "I'm not going to be married before a long, long time."

 

His mother kisses his head.

 

"Well, you're ready for when you do."

 

_Another Cuban family lived next door, and another one across the street. Claudia loved to be friends with their children, who looked and spoke just like her, even though they were going to school all day and she wasn't. After work, some days, there was still time and she would play with them in the streets of Nueva York. The block was a tapestry of so many different kinds of people and Claudia didn't mind the Irish with their orange hair or the Greeks with their thick beards and accents, but the Cubans were her favorites because they also kept memories from home._

_Sometimes, Mamá would call after Claudia in the evening after play time was over and she would bring some friends over and they'd share the meal together. Life was expensive in Nueva York, but it was better than en Cuba and Mamá told her that as long as they could pay for food and rent, they were as rich as they needed to be. If they could serve food for two with ease every night, then they could tighten the belt and afford food for four, five, six._

Usnavi says the graces like Claudia taught him to. Sometimes he switches parts to Spanish but it's alright. She likes the sound of Spanish coming out of his mouth.

 

"This is really good, Usnavi," Luz says when they dive in.

 

"Thanks, Mamá."

 

Sometimes, Claudia invites them over. Sometimes she gets invited. Sometimes she stays at home and they stay at theirs. They feel like family. Most people feel like family to her nowadays − she knows the names of everyone around her and is blessed enough to receive visits every day and never feel alone. She may have never taken a spouse of had children of her own blood but she doesn't feel like anything is missing.

 

"Finish up your plate," Claudia tells Usnavi and Usnavi pouts but finishes up his plate.

 

They talk, sometimes well into the night with Usnavi falling asleep on the couch, curled into himself with a blanket she crocheted that he loves, sometimes just so long as they're eating and then they each have their own matters to attend to. Every night, Usnavi gives her a big hug before leaving.

 

" _Buenas noches, Abuela_."

 

And she waits for him to come again the next day.

*

 

 

Usnavi will never have siblings. The mold is broken, Luz said, after a long and painful birth, but they're fine with just their one boy that they love and cherish more than life itself. He never feels alone anyways, not when he is constantly running around with his little friends. He has a kind heart and makes friends easily. Also, he has Nina.

 

"Careful, careful!" He yelps, walking up the stoop stairs with Nina's hand firmly clasped in his.

 

"I'm fine, Usnavi," she sighs.

 

She's four and a half and smarter than any child ought to be and last month she jumped down all the steps at once and scratched her knees and ever since, Usnavi has been worried sick every time she walks up or down the stairs.

 

"We're here!" Nina beams as she tears her hand out of Usnavi's and steps into Claudia's apartment.

 

_The Rosarios landed in America in 1982, so young, their eyes full of dreams and their hands ready for toil. Claudia was forty-two and already tired, though she'd never let it show. They met Mamá immediately because at that time, no one came to the barrio that spoke Spanish without meeting Mamá, stronger and more determined than any of them. They learned English and learned that America wasn't as great as they'd heard it would be, and learned to work twice as hard to reap half the crops. Kevin was stubborn and oblivious and so much more of a dreamer than Camila, his young bride, his lovely and reliable and ever so serious better half._

_Nueva York dulled the dreams in their eyes and gave them maturity far beyond their young years and by the time the family De la Vega moved in, they needed the refreshment of another couple from the island next to theirs._

 

Their friendship is an odd one. Maybe because he's the oldest, Usnavi is so careful in his every steps, quick to delve back into his growing bulk of past experience to make the simplest decisions. He doesn't need to think twice about which piragua flavor he wants: he knows cherry is his favorite. He's happy to hear all the stories Claudia told him before again and again and finds comfort in the fact that they never change. He looks far back into the past, longer than his own existence, and sees the history of his people as a logical narrative that brought him to the world and that he is destined to go back to one way or another. He is all past, and Nina is all future. She knows all of Claudia's stories by now and begs for new ones, and when Claudia's memory turns out to be a finite resource, she asks her parents, her friends' parents, everyone, eager to know more about everyone and everything. She's learned how to read already, before any teacher taught her, and showed Claudia how to spell her name. Every day adds a new flavor in her life and her favorite is every new one she hasn't encountered yet.

 

_They became fast friends. Kevin and Luís played baseball together and learned off each other, Camila and Luz cooked and talked and unwinded and by the time Usnavi was born he had two of his biggest fans already. Some days, the Rosarios babysat him. Luz said it was because they needed some nights to themselves sometimes to go dance and remember they were still young, but the real reason was because she knew that Kevin wanted children later on, when money would allow it and often asked to hold Usnavi, and she'd seen the way Camila looked at Kevin when he did._

_Five years later, almost in the early days of summer, their little sunshine of a daughter was born and Luz was vastly more help than Kevin in the birth room. Nina was loved before she could even open her eyes._

They sit down to work quietly at Claudia's table, or rather Usnavi does his homework and then gives the pages to Nina so she can read what's on them. They're both so focused that they barely notice Claudia bringing them _cafe con leche_ and cookies. She has to clear her throat for them to look up.

 

"Hungry?" She holds up the plate.

 

They each take a cookie and get back to work, or to reading. So gentle, so focused. When she asks Usnavi about his lesson later, Nina can't help cutting him and talking about everything _he_ is supposed to have learned, but he lets her with a big smile on his face. They're too different to be peas in a pod, too similar to be opposites, and just perfect to be best friends.

*

 

 

Usnavi grows every day (though not by much), lives happily surrounded by his parents who love him so much until one day, he doesn't. Winter was never his favorite in the first place but after that December, he cries every time it snows on Nueva York. For days, he refuses to go to school and just weeps quietly in Claudia's guest bed, except it's not her guest bed anymore, it's his.

Claudia may not have much but she has a heart and she has a spare bed and she always keeps her words. Unfortunate, tragic, the passing away of Usnavi's parents wasn't entirely unforeseen.

  
_"Prométeme,"_ Luz had begged, hugging Abuela with the strength she didn't have anymore.

  
_"Lo prometo,"_ Claudia had answered, bitter tears burning her eyes.

They'd been feeling weak for such a long time. The coughing, the constant pain, the migraines that never really went away, they'd had all the warning signs. Without a doctor, you can't get better, and without money, you can't find a doctor. They chose to leave Usnavi with a loving Abuela and a running business rather than a lifetime of debts for medical care that they didn't even know would heal them. So Claudia did what she did best: she took on their dream of making this boy's life a little bit better than his parents' had been.

_The last months, Mamá wasn't as strong as she had been. Claudia saw it, thought it was age working its irreversible way onto her. She hadn't been all that young when she'd had Claudia and a lifelong of work had taken its toil. Claudia did her best to be the good daughter Mamá always said she was, did everything for her at her weakest like she'd always done at her strongest._

The bodega is empty without them. Usnavi won't go back, refuses to even step inside the apartment that used to be his home. Claudia has to fetch his things for him. She promised to take good care of him and she will.

The first few weeks, she runs the bodega with Luz's sister Jane, but Jane is busy trying to tame her little Sonia and soon it just becomes Abuela Claudia keeping the bodega and keeping the barrio in order. Sometimes, Claudia takes care of Sonia too, takes her for the afternoon to make things just a little bit lighter for Jane. The poor girl never deserved all this either. She's barely arrived from Dominican Republic a couple years ago to join her family, her sister, her nephew, the only things she took with her being her child and a suitcase packed for a week's worth of clothes, and she's more lost than ever here in Nueva York on her own. Very hard worker, but Claudia wishes Jane had more to her life than strong ethics and a daughter she loves more than anything in this world.

_Mamá passed away in her sleep, smiling when they found her. Luz later told her that they all knew she was sick, but María had decided to do nothing about it, and when Mamá set her mind to something, there was nothing you could do about it._

_"She thought you'd take care of the barrio for her," she admitted to Claudia._

_Claudia thought that she could never hope to even resemble what her mother had been like, but she did her best._

Usnavi turns fourteen, starts growing facial hair that he lets take over his chin like his father used to. He starts working at the bodega every day, focused and diligent. He starts making his own money and using some of it to pay for Sonia's care. Jane refuses at first, but he won't give her a choice.

"The kid is everything I have left too," he admits to Claudia.

 

*

 

 

 

She hears Usnavi before she sees him. He's arguing with the super behind the door of the roof, getting all flustered and angry. Sixteen years old, and his hormones already making him a small man who gets angry and bothered.

 

"I swear to god, dude, if you don't let me in I'll…"

 

Silence, then Usnavi speaks again.

 

"Alright, I'm sorry, okay? But please, let me in."

 

She can't hear the low growling voice of the superintendent but it seems that it was one of his good days because she hears Usnavi's footsteps behind her and he plops down next to her on the rooftop.

 

"Abuela, I searched for you everywhere, how did you get up here?"

 

"A well placed bag of cookies," she replies.

 

She may be old already and she may have no means to intimidate anyone, but she knows how to bribe the people she needs to if she wants to see the stars. Not that there is much to see here, not with the clouds of pollution and the cold air that somehow dulls the stars here in America. They looked brighter in Cuba.

 

_Claudia walked into the apartment to find it empty. It was late at night and she went out with friends, but usually her mother waited for her in the evening._

_"¿Mamá?"_

_No response, only a post it on the fridge door with a few stars spattered onto it in Mamá's neat pencil strokes of a woman who never learned to write but wished she had. Claudia found her on the roof, staring at the night sky._

_"You can't see Cassiopeia," she told Claudia and pulled her into her side to lean against each other. "But it's still beautiful."_

 

Usnavi fidgets next to her. She never notices how jumpy he is unless she is perfectly calm and the contrast strikes her then. She smiles. There's a difference between them that she's learned to appreciate. She feels calmer, quieter around Usnavi.

 

"That one is my favorite," she says and points at a bright yellow star right above them.

 

"Which one is it?"

 

"I don't know," she admits. Rather, she knew but forgot, but that would worry him for no reason. "It's like a friend, though."

 

"A friend?"

 

_Mamá didn't know how to count besides basic calculations, didn't know how to read, didn't know much about history or science or even much about the bible like Claudia, but she knew everything about the stars._

_"You see that one, mija? That's the herdsman."_

_Claudia looked and saw it. It didn't look like a herdsman. It didn't look like anything other than a patch of stars._

_"The stars are the same everywhere you go," Mamá said. "They're always there."_

_Claudia knew that to be false. The stars were better in Cuba, brighter and clearer and there were more of them. The sky of Nueva York was a cheap sell-off. She never dared contradict her mother, but Mamá probably caught sight of her and chuckled softly._

_"The stars are your friends, Claudia," she said gently. "You think you had more in Cuba, but the truth is that you have just as many here, but you can't see them and you think they're not here. You just have to trust that they're here too."_

 

Claudia looks at the dark spot in the sky where she knows Cassiopeia to be. In the remote remnants of her memories of Cuba, she knows what it's supposed to look like, but you never see it quite so well in Nueva York.

 

"The stars are always there for you," she tells Usnavi. "You just have to trust that they're out there guiding you."

 

He doesn't say anything, but leans his head against her shoulder and takes her hand. It's a long while before the super asks them to get back in.

 

*

 

 

When he isn't at school, Usnavi is working at the bodega and on the rare occasions when he is doing neither, he spends time with his friends in Bennett Park. He brings them snacks and a radio and never comes home after sundown.

 

"Have fun with your little friends," she tells him when he kisses her cheek before leaving for an afternoon off at the park. "And don't forget to take Sonny!"

 

"I ain't taking that kid nowhere," he yelps, but she gives him her _look_ and he sighs. "Fine, but he's not allowed to rap."

 

"Yay!" Sonny shouts and jumps to his feet to follow Usnavi out.

 

_Claudia was never one to go out much. She loved simple things. A night at home with her mother watching television in Spanish − Mamá had relented her tight rule about no Spanish at home when she saw how well Claudia spoke Inglés. A fresh batch of homemade cookies. Two glasses of ice cold soda. The rustling of a blanket spread out on your legs, the quiet flipping of the pages of a photo album being opened and explored and cherished, the purring of their cat in an armchair they designated for him._

_She loved the nights when she did go out, though. With Mamá at the center of el barrio, Claudia knew everyone and she was subtle and quiet enough to be easily loved. She cared about all of them. She loved and cared and though she never asked for anything in return, fate always had its ways to give it back to her in small blessings. She began to understand why Mamá taught her patience and faith. The virtues unlocked a love shared between her and the block like she never imagined._

 

Usnavi comes back less than an hour later in catastrophe.

 

" _¡AYÚDAME!_ " He shrieks, dragging his tall friend behind him − what's his name again, Benny, she believes. "Abuela, Benny was hit in the head, you have to help him!"

 

Benny (praise the Lord, it _was_ his name) grins and waves at her, looking fine if not for the small trickle of blood down his temple. Usnavi fusses to make him sit down, rushes to the bathroom and comes back with their medical supply box in a frantic panic. Behind Usnavi's friend, Sonny is walking in timidly, sheepish. Claudia takes a look at Benny's head. Minor scratch. Usnavi starts to rub it clean and pour too much alcohol on it − Benny winces, but takes it − and he's hesitating between two kinds of bandages, both of which vastly too big for such a small injury.

 

"What happened?" She asks.

 

"It's this _kid_ ," Usnavi spits, glaring back at Sonny. "Why'd you do that, Sonny?"

 

"I told you, I didn't mean to!" Sonny cries out and Abuela holds up her hands for a hug − the way he runs into her embrace, he looks like he needed one. "I saw Pete at the park and we started playing soccer and then the ball hit Benny. It was an accident, Usnavi, I told you!"

 

"It's fine, " Benny says, patting Usnavi's shoulder. "It don't even hurt."

 

Usnavi doesn't reply, but his glare doesn't budge one bit as he puts a cartoonishly too big band aid onto Benny's temple.

 

_Claudia got what she gave, and so much more. She wanted to be the first one people called in case of trouble, she wanted to help, to love, to give herself to others. Her friends could always rely on her. Her mom even more._

_"When will you think of yourself as well?" Mamá asked her one day._

_"I am," Claudia replied._

_Somehow her happiness was synonymous with making everyone else happy._

 

 

Benny goes home that night thoroughly taken care of.

 

*

 

As the years go by, the heat becomes a problem. Claudia finds herself sweating and panting, unable to stand the sunlight for much longer than what it takes her to walk across the street to the bodega to visit Usnavi during the day. She feels that she's grown into an old body before she realized it. Sixty-five and already her bones pop in the morning and Usnavi forces her to visit Dr Gross every few months. Claudia doesn't trust doctors, she never has, but she can never refuse Usnavi anything, so she visits his Dr Gross and ignores all his advice.

 

Usnavi talks about his island and how much he longs to go back. She craves Cuba all the same, has done so ever since she landed here in this odd country that she's barely learned to understand in all the decades she's spent in Nueva York. Trying to imagine living back on an island is hard. She wants to see the beaches again, she wants an island full of brown faces where everyone speaks the same Spanish as her and the food tastes like home again, but if she could take all that with a little bit less heat, she wouldn't mind that one bit. But Usnavi wants it all, burning sun or not, so she lets him dwell on his dreams all he wants.

 

_Mamá started to get chilly all the time the last few months of her life. She'd never taken to American weather in the first place. She would stay out in the sun for hours and hours like the lizards Claudia used to catch for fun in La Víbora. Claudia, who had played outside with her friends all the years of her childhood when there'd been time, all tan lines and warm skin, started to lose touch of that. Mamá said that America was finally rubbing off on her. Claudia refused to admit to that, even after forty years in this place, but it seemed that the Cuban blood was stronger in Mamá's veins than hers. Mamá was of the old batch, the ones who would cover themselves in coats and scarves from head to toe all winter and then some, because summer never really came in Nueva York, not like it used to en Cuba. Claudia sweated buckets under so many layers._

 

"When I go back to DR, you'll come with me, Abuela, right?" Usnavi asks all the time.

 

"Anything for you, _mijo,_ " she replies every time.

 

It's a profound injustice that her mom never really suited herself to this country she wanted to be a part of, and that Claudia seems built for temperate weather these days even though her heart longs for her lost home, for the South, whichever island it leads her to. If it's Usnavi's Dominican Republic, that's what it'll be.

 

The truth, in the end, is that cold or hot did not matter in the least. What mattered is that Mamá's body was growing tired and found ways to tell her.

 

Claudia is afraid hers is telling her the same thing.

 

Claudia counts the years. She talks about going back as if it's a realistic perspective for her future, as if money is going to fall from heaven, a gift from the Lord to grant her wish. Deep down, she knows she'll die here and never see her people again, but she'll be surrounded by her new people, the ones she found in the Heights. Her dreams collide into each other. A life of listening to Mamá tell her to make her own life here, to make this place home, another life of listening to Usnavi beg her to go back South with him, to find home again. Claudia longs for both equally.

 

 

But she fears her time will be done before she gets a chance.

 

*

 

 

 

"A'ight, I'll be telling them we gone tomorrow."

 

" _Que Dios te bendiga_ , it's too hot for me out there," Claudia kisses Usnavi's brow before he leaves.

 

He gives her the plastic fan back − she needs it under this heat. Her breath has been harder today, probably the lack of AC. Then he's gone and she hears him shout excitedly at the others outside. She smiles.

 

"He sounds really happy to leave," Nina notes.

 

She's come to her Abuela earlier today − some sort of family fight that she wanted to get away from, breathe a little, calm down. She wasn't too happy to hear Claudia and Usnavi were leaving, but Nina has always been too polite to complain. Still, Claudia noticed that she's veered the conversation towards anything but that while Usnavi was here.

 

"He is," Claudia says. "He loves the DR. This is his dream."

 

"But is it yours?" Nina asks.

 

She takes Claudia's hand gently, smiles. She's trying to coax a confession out of her Abuela. She won't have any; Claudia's mind is set. _It won't be long for me_ , she thinks. _He's my child, the only one I have ever had, and I'll follow wherever he leads._

 

"I'm too old for dreams. I'm very happy," she says.

 

"Abuela…"

 

" _Very happy_ ," she insists. "As should you. Are you happy, Nina?"

 

_"Are you happy, Claudia?" Mamá asked a thousand years ago._

_"I'm very happy," Claudia had replied._

 

Nina glances down at their hands. Always nervous, their little sunshine. Ever since she was little.

 

"Actually, there's something new that makes me _very_ happy," she says and it takes Claudia's hands to still hers. "Yesterday when the blackout started, me and Benny, we… we got together. We love each other."

 

That takes Claudia aback − she was aware that Nina was interested in Usnavi's friend but never expected it to happen so quickly − but she brushes her thumb against Nina's cheek and Nina looks up at her.

 

"This is very good news, pumpkin," Claudia says. "I'm very proud of you. I hope he's good to you."

 

"He is," Nina says, her smile saying it all.

 

The door barges open, a sliver of shouts and songs, and closes again.

 

" _Yo, Abuela,_ I brought you _un refresco_ ," Sonny hands her a bottle of soda that is warm and sticky, but she appreciates it as it is.

 

Claudia puts it down on the coffee table and holds up her arms to invite Sonny for a hug with his Abuela.

 

"I'll miss you the most," she tells him, his arms tight around her. "You'll have to call Usnavi every day."

 

"I will," he promises.

 

"Good boy."

 

She kisses his hair. She's suddenly overcome with tiredness, wants to take one last nap in her bed in Washington Heights before the rest of her life with Usnavi.

 

"If you'll excuse me," she says, stands up with Sonny's help. "I'll rest a little."

 

"Of course, Abuela," Nina says, holding her arm as well to help her to her room. "You'll need your rest."

 

" _Que Dios te bendiga_ ," Claudia replies, "You've always been such a good girl."

 

Her joints ache as she lies down in her bed and after exchanging smiles with Nina, she goes to sleep. She is so tired. Some rest will be a blessing.

 

*

 

 

Usnavi's heart is broken in a million pieces and the boxes upon boxes of old photos are as many bandages to try and mend it all back together. Just as achingly, he hates that the longest time he's been able to spend with Nina since she flew back from Stanford is filled with their shared grief over their lost Abuela.

 

_"Abuelita," he asked when he was very little, a toddler, and saw her organize his new school pictures in one of her albums. "Why do you have so many_ fotos _?"_

_She touched his cheek, reached up to flatten his hair, make him look handsome._

_"Because_ fotos _are beautiful memories, cariño," she replied. "I keep them in my albums and in my heart so nothing gets lost."_

Nina has been browsing the albums with him for what is probably well over an hour, pointing to him the most memorable ones and Usnavi and her have teared up as much as they've smiled. With every page he turns, there's a new memory, a new flash of love for the past he shared with this woman. Nina holds his arm, her head on his shoulder, looks at the pictures of the Abuela they so loved, sharing memories the other has never heard. She digs out some old poem of his and teases him relentlessly about it, but it's Nina, and Nina can tease him every day of her life and Usnavi will still love her all so much. She's his sister from another island, a soulmate of sorts. He desires her happiness above everything.

 

_Usnavi was five and Abuela had told him she had a wonderful_ sorpresita _for him after school. The surprise turned out to be a visit from the Rosarios with their little baby girl. Her eyes were wide open and she grabbed his finger with a tight little fist when he tried to stroke her short curly hair._

_"Alabanza!" Abuela Claudia shouted. "Best friends already."_

_Usnavi smiled. He begged to hold Nina and when she was in his arms, minuscule and warm and squirming, and he had never felt so proud._

_"She's gonna change the world someday," Señor Rosario said._

"Nina, how much is your tuition?" He asks.

 

She sighs, puts down the old silly poem. Her hands are fidgeting on her knees when she answers, her eyes down.

 

"She asked me about it last night."

 

"Abuela would want you to have some!"

 

"I… have my parents," she replies resolutely. "I can't take her money."

 

She gives him a sad smile, a pitiful smile, but it warms his broken heart all the same. Hesitantly, she adds.

 

"But if you could spare some of these photos, my dad would appreciate it…"

 

"There's bunches of boxes inside," he says, pats her shoulder before getting those boxes.

 

The apartment is empty and hot and soulless. Usnavi knows he'll have to clear things up, to take some time to give away everything Abuela ever owned in her life, piece by piece spreading her legacy, and with his flight booked for tomorrow… He gets himself a glass of water, wishes he had something stronger, sits at the kitchen table to gather his foggy thoughts. Nina will forgive him a few minutes for himself. Over across the room, by the couches, his eyes find the picture of María, who had been Abuela's Claudia's mom and of whom Usnavi has no concrete memory.

 

_"Why do you still keep the picture of Mamá over the sofa, Abuela?" He asked one day they were cleaning up together and he had just finished polishing the glass protecting the old picture of an unsmiling woman with deep eyes that betrayed her kindness._

_"Because I'll always love her. And so that she guides me forever," Abuela Claudia answered._

 

Usnavi gets up, shuffles in the shelf where Abuela Claudia kept her boxes of pictures, he knows exactly where it is, the one he's looking for. It's a quick fix, just something he has to get done now, because he needs it more than ever and he only just pins it on the wall for sake of time. Abuela's portrait fits right next to her mom's. _Please guide me_ , Usnavi thinks. _Te necesito._

 

*

 

It's been hours only, but a very long day in Usnavi's life, since Sonny revealed the mural that would make him stay here forever. All day he's been greeted with nothing but support and love, all day people patting him on the back, hugging him, the occasional " _Que bueno, mijo_ " by the older ladies when he told each and every one of his people he was staying home after all.

 

"D'you think… D'you think she's happy now?" Sonny asks hesitantly.

 

It's late in the afternoon but not too late that the sun still isn't smiling on the mural from the end of the street, Usnavi's street. The bodega is closed, but Usnavi is in no hurry to go home just yet. He grabbed Sonny by the hand and for a while now they've been staring at Abuela's smiling face. Usnavi pretends his cheeks are dry. He told himself he wouldn't and broke that oath twelve times already.

 

_"Abuela, you'll love my island, I promise," he told her over a pile of ninety-six grands. "We'll be so happy there."_

_"Mi amor," she replied. "There is nowhere we could go that I would be unhappy, if it's with you."_

 

"Yeah," Usnavi says. "She is."

 

The mural is gorgeous. They're sitting on the sidewalk like hoodlums and Usnavi will have to make Sonny dust his pants before getting home, but this is the best view, all the way across the empty street, where they can take in the full picture.

 

"I just…" Sonny trails off. "Nevermind, it's stupid."

 

" _¿Qué?_ " Usnavi insists.

 

He wraps an arm around Sonny's shoulders and Sonny nestles into him like he used to do all the time when they were little. Sonny has always been a cuddler.

 

"I hope they're all proud of us," he mumbles into Usnavi's chest.

 

The unnamed "they" encompasses Abuela Claudia, Usnavi knows, but also all the ones they've lost. He thinks of his parents, but not just, of an Abuelo in the DR he loved so dearly when he went on vacation there as a kid but lost a few years ago, of two aunts on his mom's side back when they were still going home every summer, of all the ancestors he's never known, most not even by name, of the whole of the Dominican Republic.

 

"So do I," Usnavi says, rubbing his back. " _Yo también._ "

 

He could stay here all night, knows he won't, of course, because he has a date with Vanessa later tonight and wouldn't miss it for the world, because life will keep going as it always has, but also absolutely and distinctively different from the way it always has.

 

"The mural is beautiful," he says for the thousandth time.

 

"I'm so glad it worked," Sonny replies. "You have no idea."

 

Usnavi pulls Sonny tight against him, his little cousin who never had a dad, whom he would do anything for, anything at all. He wants to stay by his side his whole life, see him grow into a proper young man. The mural is the most beautiful present he has ever received in his life, precious beyond words. He wonders if Sonny knows how much it means to him, can even understand the depth in his heart. He wonders if Abuela ever felt this way. He closes his eyes, can still see her face, smell the scent of her flowery perfume, hear her tender voice. He never received anything but the most sincere love from her. It's time for him to pass on that legacy and be a blessing to the boy life has thrown at him and maybe, hopefully, be a fraction as good to him as Abuela Claudia ever was to everyone on her street.

 


End file.
